City and Guilds buys into Wellington firm

City &
Guilds, one of the UK’s largest training organisations,
has become a major shareholder in Wellington based Totara
Learning Solutions.

The acquisition by City and Guilds,
the UK based international vocational and work based skills
organisation, means that it has acquired a one third
shareholding in Totara Learning Solutions Ltd. Totara
Learning Solutions have developed a learning management
platform for business and Government organisations –
Totara LMS. The technology is open source meaning the
software’s program code is available and can be customised
by the end user to suit their needs. The Wellington based
firm has experienced phenomenal growth during the last 12
months. Clients include Tesco, Sony, Vodafone and Safeway
and there are now almost two million people using the
software worldwide. Totara LMS is also used by 10 New
Zealand Government organisations.

Chris Jones, Director
General of City & Guilds commented “This is a really
exciting development for the City & Guilds Group. As an
organisation we are committed to ongoing research and
investment in learning including Totara LMS. We are keen to
invest and support the development of this exciting open
source learning platform.”

The partnership tops off a
stellar year for Totara after winning the New Zealand Open
Source Awards in November and the Best of Elearning! Award
of Excellence in September. 2013 looks to be a big year for
this two year old company with Totara having plans to expand
its international markets as well as expanding the
product’s functionality to include performance
management.

Richard Wyles, CEO of Totara Learning
Solutions commented “We very much welcome the addition of
the City & Guilds group as they have first-hand experience
using Totara LMS and all parties can see significant
synergies with a wider range of learning and technology
services available. City & Guilds’ values are very much
aligned to our team’s open source ethos, and our mission
to transform the learning technologies marketplace through
offering better value and flexibility. We are looking
forward to a very exciting 2013 and beyond.”

Quick
Facts

City &
Guilds

Vocational education organisation founded in
1878Princess Anne Institute's PresidentTurnover in
excess of £110mOffering more than 500
qualificationsCourses offered through 8500 training
providersOperating in 81 countries worldwide

Totaralms

Wellington based technology
companyOpen source Learning Management System ased on
MoodleApproaching two million subscribersDistributed
to 30 countriesUsed by 10 New Zealand Government
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